ong the banks of the Po,
from Piedmont to Romagna, carried their arms and diffused their name
from the Alps to the Apennine. The Ligurians dwelt on the rocky coast
which now forms the republic of Genoa. Venice was yet unborn; but the
territories of that state, which lie to the east of the Adige, were
inhabited by the Venetians. The middle part of the peninsula, that now
composes the duchy of Tuscany and the ecclesiastical state, was the
ancient seat of the Etruscans and Umbrians; to the former of whom Italy
was indebted for the first rudiments of civilized life. The Tyber rolled
at the foot of the seven hills of Rome, and the country of the Sabines,
the Latins, and the Volsci, from that river to the frontiers of Naples,
was the theatre of her infant victories. On that celebrated ground the
first consuls deserved triumphs, their successors adorned villas, and
their posterity have erected convents. Capua and Campania possessed the
immediate territory of Naples; the rest of the kingdom was inhabited
by many warlike nations, the Marsi, the Samnites, the Apulians, and
the Lucanians; and the sea-coasts had been covered by the flourishing
colonies of the Greeks. We may remark, that when Augustus divided Italy
into eleven regions, the little province of Istria was annexed to that
seat of Roman sovereignty.

The European provinces of Rome were protected by the course of the Rhine
and the Danube. The latter of those mighty streams, which rises at the
distance of only thirty miles from the former, flows above thirteen
hundred miles, for the most part to the south-east, collects the tribute
of sixty navigable rivers, and is, at length, through six mouths,
received into the Euxine, which appears scarcely equal to such an
accession of waters. The provinces of the Danube soon acquired the
general appellation of Illyricum, or the Illyrian frontier, and were
esteemed the most warlike of the empire; but they deserve to be more
particularly considered under the names of Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia,
Dalmatia, Dacia, Maesia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece.

The province of Rhaetia, which soon extinguished the name of the
Vindelicians, extended from the summit of the Alps to the banks of
the Danube; from its source, as far as its conflux with the Inn. The
greatest part of the flat country is subject to the elector of Bavaria;
the city of Augsburg is protected by the constitution of the German
empire; the Grisons are safe in their mountains, a